Whatever the outcome of the election, Americans will remain deeply divided. Schools can help us learn to disagree respectfully—and boost literacy at the same time.

Studies have shown that readers use their background knowledge—vocabulary, facts, and conceptual understanding—to comprehend the text they read. Much of this evidence isn’t new.

Reading science has reached consensus that background knowledge is essential for reading comprehension. What remains an open question for the science of reading, however, is how and when this ...

Being able to read things quickly is great, but only if you’re able to comprehend what you’re reading. Blazing through 200 pages of reading in an hour or two is certainly impressive, but if ...

The back-to-basics reading standards proposal, which is open to public comment through May 18, would drastically alter the way reading and writing are taught to millions of Texas schoolchildren ...

Many reading comprehension questions depend on understanding a passage’s structure: how sentences and paragraphs relate to each other and fit together to make an argument.

“Knowledge-building” has become a buzzword in reading instruction. It refers to English/language arts approaches that aim to systematically build students’ understanding of the world ...

Make a chart with the five Ws and an H to help young readers build reading comprehension. Reviewing the five Ws (who, what, where, when and why) and an H (how) after reading a text can improve ...

When you read a text and show you understand it by answering questions, this is called comprehension. You use comprehension skills all the time in everyday life. For example, when you work out ...